


sorry if I say I need you

by carolinaa



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of trauma, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Learning to be Loved, Like quite a bit, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 00:52:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16230812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinaa/pseuds/carolinaa
Summary: Faramir's life is destroyed in one night, and he's not sure how he's supposed to put it back together all by himself.(Maybe he doesn't have to.)





	sorry if I say I need you

**Author's Note:**

> do yall remember lotr lmaoooo
> 
> tw for mentions of suicide, abuse, and emetophobia warning. this is kind of a heavy one. stay safe out there my dudes

Faramir wakes up in the hospital. 

He isn’t given the luxury of momentarily forgetting what happened to put him there. He remembers flames and his father screaming and sirens and the house creaking as the fire weakened it.

There’s no one in his hospital room except him and some coloring books on the bedside table. He remembers being in the hospital before, he remembers Boromir holding his hand and he remembers that his dad didn’t show up last time either. 

  
The nurse tells him it’s been three days since the fire. His dad’s dead. Boromir isn’t returning calls.

Faramir nods dully when they ask if he’s alright trying to sleep. He shakes his head when they ask if he’d like some company.

 

He’s released a week later. He stands alone in the hospital parking lot with no earthly possessions to speak of and calls Pippin on a payphone.

“Can you pick me up?” he asks. It’s the first time he’s spoken since he’s woken up. 

“Faramir? What the hell?” Pippin says. “Where were you at game night the other day, we called you like eighty times--?”

“I’m--" Faramir croaks.

"If you're hungover and asking for a ride home from whatever the fuck I'll hang up on you."

"I'm at the hospital,” Faramir says, his voice scraping, almost mechanical. 

“Oh, shit,” Pippin says, sobering immediately. “Give me fifteen.”

 

Pippin asks a lot of questions that Faramir doesn’t answer. 

“Can I crash at your place?” is the only one Faramir asks in return. 

Pippin nods. He drives to his house and holds the car door open for Faramir because Faramir’s hand is still covered in burns. 

 

“So what happened?” Pippin asks the next day, even though Faramir has been silent all morning.

“My dad died,” Faramir says. He isn’t surprised when Pippin doesn’t get too upset about this information. He doesn’t do a very good job of painting his dad in a good light when he talks to Pippin about him.

“What’s that?” Pippin points to Faramir’s burned arm. 

“My house burned down,” Faramir says. 

“How?”

Faramir shrugs. “Arson” seems a diplomatic enough answer.

 

Aragorn comes by to check on him while Pippin is at work.

“Sorry about your dad,” he says, with the air of someone who thinks Faramir is better off without a father.

“Have you heard from Boromir?” Faramir asks. 

Aragorn shakes his head. “He’s taking finals right now, right? He usually does his social media blackout thing, we can’t reach him.”

Faramir doesn’t know what Boromir usually does during finals. He doesn’t want to admit that his dad kept him from talking to Boromir for months before the incident, that he doesn’t know anything about him anymore. He doesn't know why Boromir would ignore a voicemail from the hospital, but then again, Faramir in the hospital isn't anything new.

 

Faramir hasn’t slept through a night since leaving the hospital. He misses having a morphine pump. 

Every time he gets close to relaxing, he remembers that the last time he fell asleep unguarded, he woke up to his house burning around him, his dad shouting and blocking the way to the front door, throwing beer bottles to keep Faramir back. Laughing as the ceiling started to collapse.

He’s still staying in the living room of Pippin’s apartment, and he knows Pippin is going to get tired of him screaming himself awake eventually.

 

“Are there any leads on the guy who torched your house?” Pippin asks.

“They don’t need any.”

“Oh, they caught him?” Pippin asks, surprised. 

“He killed himself in the fire,” Faramir says, and continues eating his cereal. He watches Pippin connect the dots very slowly, and watches Pippin’s expression fall into deep-seated horror. 

“He…?”

“Pip, it’s fine.” Faramir puts his spoon down, only partially because his hand is shaking. Pippin’s face is ashen, he’s still staring at Faramir, and Faramir  _ knows _ that in his head, Pippin is going over all the times that he didn’t call CPS on Faramir’s dad. “I'm okay. Okay? I need to go to class.”

Pippin looks like he doesn’t know what to say. Eventually, Faramir just gets up and leaves the kitchen.

 

It’s two weeks after the actual fire that Faramir processes it. He's  managed to sit for his finals and get his grades in order despite the massive amounts of classes he missed, he's been functioning  _fine_ despite the weird looks from those he used to hang out with, until--

That weekend he's sitting with his friends at Aragorn’s (Pippin got tired of having Faramir on his couch and Aragorn offered up a guest room), and he hears laughter around him (he joins in; nobody has noticed that he’s faking it) and realizes--his dad tried to murder him two weeks ago. 

He stands up and goes to the bathroom and closes the door and vomits his guts out. The conversation in the other room doesn’t stop, they’re too far away to have heard him. 

Someone knocks on the door a while later, and Faramir drags his head up from where he’s been resting his forehead against the cold bathroom wall. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and tries to find the energy to stand up. 

“Faramir, are you in there?”

“Give me a minute,” Faramir says, the sound thin and wobbly. "I'll be right out."

 

Aragorn wants to get him into trauma counseling. 

“You had a horrible thing happen to you, you need to talk to someone,” Aragorn insists.

Faramir snorts and brushes it off, not losing the grin that he’s forced himself to keep up for days now. “I’m doing fine.”

“I don’t think you are,” Aragorn says, voice clipped. He could be referring to any number of things, like the deep circles under Faramir’s eyes or his lack of appetite or the scratches across his slow-healing burns from his own fingernails. Not that those are any of his business. 

Faramir shakes his head, still smiling good-naturedly. “Aragorn, it’s alright. I’d just like to hear from Boromir. Can you get in touch with him?”

“Don’t you have his number?” Aragorn asks, furrowing his eyebrows. 

Faramir, of course, doesn’t. A little caught off-guard, he forgets every single lie he’s prepared for why he has no contact with his only family. “My phone,” he finally gets out, too late. “It’s ash.”

“Fair enough,” Aragorn says, but he looks even more suspicious than he was before. 

 

He shuts himself in the bathroom and calls his brother, pressing his back against the door to keep anyone from trying to come in. 

The phone rings out. He doesn’t leave a voicemail, just hangs up and slides to sit down against the door, getting in a more comfortable position to try again. 

Before he can, the phone darkens with an incoming call, and Faramir almost cries out in relief when it’s his brother’s name at the top of the screen. His hands fumble on the device, but he swipes the green button and puts the phone to his ear. 

Boromir’s there, already talking at a hundred miles an hour. “Holy shit, Aragorn, I just got my phone fixed, I saw all your fucking texts--is he okay? Is he _ okay?  _ Why didn’t anyone fucking drive out to find me? I’m--!” 

Boromir’s going to talk himself into a breakdown, so Faramir tables his own and says, “Boromir. It’s--”

“ _ Faramir.  _ Holy _ shit. _ Are you--”

“I’m fine,” Faramir says, even as his eyes start to fill up with relieved tears. “Can you--”

“I’m on my way,” Boromir says. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

 

It’s a three-hour drive, and Faramir goes out and gives Aragorn his phone back. “He broke his phone. It’s working now.”

“You talked to him?” Aragorn asks.

Faramir nods. “He’s on his way.”

“I’ve gotta get to work, but I’m glad you got in touch,” Aragorn says, and smiles. “Think about the counseling thing, alright?”

“Alright,” Faramir says, even though he’s already thought about it and the answer is no.

 

Boromir somehow intuits that Faramir is staying at Aragorn’s house, because there’s a knock on the door two and a half hours later and suddenly Boromir is charging towards Faramir, eyes red and face blotchy, and Faramir finds that he’s getting bowled over in a hug. 

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here,” Boromir says, not letting go.

Faramir holds on so tight his burns start to stretch painfully. “It’s fine.”

“He tried to  _ kill _ you.”

Faramir flinches, against his will, and waves off Boromir’s apology. “I’ve never been his favorite.” Faramir tries to laugh it off, like he’s been laughing it all off, but something catches in his throat and he chokes, beginning to cough. He’s still dealing with smoke damage to his lungs, probably. 

Boromir tightens his grip and Faramir can tell that he’s already crying again. “I hate him.”

"You don’t have to. He loved you.”

At that, Boromir pulls back so abruptly that Faramir’s head snaps back. “I hate him,” he says again, with all the conviction in his body. 

Faramir stares at Boromir, and feels his smile start to slip. “You don’t  _ have  _ to,” Faramir repeats, and laughs uncomfortably. “It’s my fault that all of this happened, anyway--”

“What the fuck? How is it  _ your fault _ \--”

“--He  _ loved  _ you, and you should be grateful--”

“--Why the hell would I forgive someone trying to murder you?”

“I’m not the favorite,” Faramir insists. "I never was."

Boromir finally lets go of Faramir, and Faramir takes a step back as Boromir raises his voice. “So that makes it alright for him to try and kill you?”

Faramir doesn’t know. If it isn’t because of  _ him, _ he doesn’t know why else his dad would want to kill him. “I don’t--”

“You can’t blame yourself for this,” Boromir says, adamant. 

“I just--”

“Faramir,  _ listen _ .” Boromir grabs his arm. “It isn’t your fault.”

Boromir’s voice is too loud. His grip on Faramir’s arm is too tight. Faramir wrenches out of it, and stumbles backwards. 

“I’m gonna puke,” he says, and turns and runs for the bathroom.

 

He doesn’t feel like he’s getting better. Boromir has been pretty much glued to his side whenever he's home (because it's fucking winter break and that means Faramir has nowhere to escape to), and while Faramir appreciates the moral support (it’s definitely better to know that he has some sort of family left), he feels like he’s suffocating. Boromir wants to coddle him, and while logically, that makes sense (the last time Boromir left, Faramir almost died), he’s starting to hate it. Aragorn's doing the same thing, him and Boromir doing a sort of helicopter parent thing that's making Faramir more claustrophobic than anything, and it comes to a head on one specific morning, when Faramir's been kept up for two nights because of a fun new recurring nightmare.

Faramir's tired, feeling like a wrung-out dish towel, feeling like his bones could collapse into dust if he asked them to. He's not in the mood for conversation, and he's  _not_ in the mood for acknowledging his feelings.

But Boromir moved out a long time ago and he doesn't know a thing about how Faramir's moods work anymore.

"I'm fine," Faramir says, cutting off Boromir's pitying question before he can ask it. "You don't have to baby me."

Aragorn looks up from his coffee. "We're all worried about you, Faramir, I don't think it's fair for you to get mad at us for that."

"Fuck off," Faramir snaps. "Both of you, honestly. Neither of you lived in that fucking house these last two years, so I think I'm the best judge of how I'm doing."

"Stop pushing us away when we're just trying to help," Boromir says, and sets his own mug of coffee down. If he starts raising his voice, Faramir  _will_ lose his shit, but sometimes Boromir forgetsthat, so Faramir starts edging back towards the bedroom door. "Faramir, get back here, I'm serious, you can't do this by yourself. We need to talk about this--"

"You  _left_ ," Faramir says, the loudest his voice has been in about a year. "I can survive without you."

"Yeah, you sure proved that," Boromir said, and gestured to indicate Faramir's still-pink burns, angry and provoked. "Maybe give someone else a shot at it, yeah?"

"Boromir," Aragorn says, warning, but Faramir's already gone, fleeing back to the bed he never should have left.

 

It’s Arwen that eventually gets sent in after him, when she gets home from her shift. She knocks, and Faramir begrudgingly says that she can come in, and watches her try her best not to look too worried about him where he's slumped on the floor with his back against the bed.

“Not feeling well?” she asks, voice lilting upwards like she’s telling a joke.

Faramir just wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.

She sits on the floor next to him, and puts an arm around his shoulders. “You’re doing so well,” she tells him, low and close to his ear. “Alright?”

Faramir turns and puts his face in the crook of her neck and shoulder, and she just holds his hand for a while.

“My dad tried to murder me,” he eventually says to her. It’s weird to say it out loud, and it hangs heavy in the air.

Arwen nods, her chin brushing his hair. “Yeah.”

“That’s fucked up,” he says, but it sounds more like a question than he’d like.

Arwen snorts--halfway to a laugh, like she doesn’t seem to know if she’s supposed to do that or not--and she rubs her hand up and down his arm comfortingly. “Yeah.”

 

“Did your dad used to hit you?” Legolas asks. 

He and Legolas don’t hang out a lot, but Boromir had to drive back to his apartment to pack a proper suitcase of clothes, giving Faramir a day or two to cool off from their confrontation, and Legolas had gotten stuck on babysitting duty. Legolas is far more chill than Boromir; as in, he’s just been scrolling through Instagram and letting Faramir do his own thing, until this question came out of the blue. 

Faramir doesn’t see any reason to lie, but it takes him a second to process the serious question. 

“I’m not gonna, fuckin’, tell Aragorn, or anything,” Legolas says, and rolls his eyes--not rudely, just his way of deflecting any sort of emotion. “Just--my dad did too, sometimes. He wasn't a bad guy, just--had issues. And talking about it helps. I guess.”

“Is this Aragorn’s way of getting me to do trauma counseling?” Faramir asks. 

Legolas shrugs, one palm up to the ceiling. “You caught me,” he says, not sheepish in the slightest. “Anyway, if you wanna go piss on your dad's grave or whatever, we have your back.”

"Uh, pass." Faramir scrunches his nose. “Who's 'we?'”

“Like, everyone. Dumbass.” Legolas goes back to Instagram. 

Faramir narrows his eyes at nothing and crosses his arms over his chest.

Sensing the tense energy he's introduced into the room, Legolas sighs and his phone back down a minute later. "Listen, I know you can handle yourself and you're doing fine. But you could be doing better."

Faramir thinks he can feel his own resolve crumbling. "You wouldn't mind?"

Legolas's eyes soften, just a little bit. "Sure."

Faramir turns back to the TV and Legolas goes back to his phone. 

"I know you're just a spy for Boromir and Aragorn," Faramir says a few minutes later, but it's more joking than he would have been able to manage ten minutes ago.

"That's no secret, honey," Legolas says. "Whatever gets you back on your feet is justifiable for me."


End file.
